Dear Yelena Sergeyevna

Four school leavers come to the flat of their mathematics teacher Yelena Sergeyevna to wish her a happy birthday. There are flowers, a cake and good wishes. Then the real reason comes out: they want their exam papers back, meaning to change them before the marks are fixed. Yelena Sergeyevna refuses. And once she refuses the night turns into something else entirely. Eldar Ryazanov adapted the film from a play by Lyudmila Razumovskaya and it takes place almost entirely in one flat. The director had been known until then for much-loved comedies; what he does here is nothing like that. The telling presses the collapse of a generation's values into a single night and gives nobody an easy way out. Marina Neyolova plays Yelena Sergeyevna. It is one of the harshest Soviet films of the perestroika years.